Chicken Stir Fry And Leftover Mac And Cheese

Since we no longer RV or travel very much otherwise, I’ve given up gardening and don’t cook much while on a diet, and we only eat out occasionally, I don’t have a whole lot to post about these days but I'll keep plugging along.

Speaking of my diet, it finally occurred to me that stir fry would be perfect since it contains protein, fiber and other good things for me.  I wanted to do chicken so we all could eat it and after a web search I settled on the Chicken Stir Fry Recipe from “Natasha’s Kitchen” as it had pretty much the same sauce as the others I looked at but with several more vegetables.  I made a few changes to the recipe ingredients and increased everything by 50% as shown below.

Chicken Stir Fry

Ingredients:

1½ lb. chicken thighs breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces

3 Tbsp oil, divided

1½ Tbsp unsalted butter

1 small zucchini, sliced in half moons

1½ cup broccoli, cut into florets

1½ medium carrot, julienned or cubed

12 oz mushrooms, sliced

¾ red pepper, cubed

¾ onion, cubed

6 garlic cloves, minced

1½ tsp fresh ginger, minced (I used ginger paste)

¾ cup cashews

Sauce Ingredients:

¾ cup chicken broth

3/8 cup water

3/8 cup soy sauce, or gluten-free soy sauce

3 Tbsp honey

1½ Tbsp corn starch

Instructions:

Trim chicken breasts, Jaccard, and cut them into bite-sized pieces. 

Cut the vegetables into even-sized pieces.

Combine all of the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl. Set aside.

In a large pan (or wok), on med/high heat, heat 1 Tbsp oil. Once the oil is hot, add chicken in a single layer. Cook chicken until browned, mixing as needed. Don’t overcook and remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.

Add the remaining oil and the butter to the skillet with the broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms, red peppers, onion, and carrots, season with S&P, and cook until vegetables are crisp-tender, mixing frequently.

Add chicken back to the pan. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for 1 minute, stirring frequently.

Add the cashews then pour the sauce into the pan and bring to a boil. 

Turn down the heat and let stir fry simmer until the sauce thickens and is well incorporated with the remaining ingredients. 

Garnish with green onion and sesame seed before serving if desired.

The Verdict:

We all enjoyed this dish as it was a very good and healthy meal which we served without rice to cut back on the carbs and calories.  I normally over cook stir-fry veggies but I got these just right.  The only negative was that the sauce did not thicken so I would use 2-3 times as much cornstarch next time.

Mac And Cheese

Pat had requested some M&C and I used a whole pound of pasta to make a stove-top version which turned out good but not blow-us-away and after eating as a leftover once, Bev decided to make it into a different dish.  She had two pounds of 93% lean ground beef in the fridge which got browned in a skillet and seasoned well then she stirred in the M&C along with some frozen peas to get the dish below, which was very good and it all got eaten.

Photos can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

Mid August, 2026 event dates